


though i have to say goodbye

by gelato



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-07-19 11:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19973494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelato/pseuds/gelato
Summary: “Luke says,” Simon starts casually, “that you have a ghost problem.”Maia pushes her nose deeper into his fridge. “You’re out of eggs,” she says. “And Gretel’s not aproblem.”





	though i have to say goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for the Shadowhunters WLW Fic Bingo. Prompt: "Ghost/Human AU." I wanted to reflect on Gretel's death in an interesting way. Maia's not human, but. Oh well!
> 
> Note: This fic briefly mentions Jordan, in a way that feels sympathetic. It's not sympathetic to _him_ , but rather the ways in which abuse survivors feel conflicted toward their abusers. Canonically, we know Maia forgives Jordan for his actions. This is mentioned but not narratively justified. Take care reading!

"I think," Maia says one night. "I'm seeing Gretel in my living room."

She's on dish duty with Luke, cleaning up after a rowdy pack meeting. Luke frowns at her, puts a soapy hand to her forehead. "Like a hallucination?"

And Maia doesn't know how, but she's completely sure when says, "No. She's real."

Luke suddenly looks sad. Maia wishes maybe she had kept that specific information to herself. Looking at Luke like this feels like that moment as a teenager, when you realize your parents are just human, no more better at keeping it together than you are.

The last thing she wants to do right now is unpack Luke’s longstanding guilt over Gretel. Or the pack, or the events of last year.

“Don’t worry,” Maia says gently. “I’m sure it’s just a weird fluke with management Up There. I’ll ask Magnus to sort it out.”

-

Maia does not go to Magnus. Even telling Luke feels like she revealed a very personal, childhood secret. Maia resolves, instead, to figure it out herself.

-

The thing is. Gretel is wearing the same beige button up. And there's a dried canvas of blood spread across her stomach. Other than that, her face glows like the afterlife is just an afterthought. Maia sees her again one night, after Jordan insists on dropping her off at her apartment yet _again_. It takes careful maneuvering to dodge his casually placed attempts to follow her inside.

Inside, Gretel's perched against the wall, eyebrow raised. Maia doesn't get to pretend like she won't recognize Jordan, because Gretel knows every intimate detail about _before_. She winces for what's to come.

"So that's him?" Gretel asks, tracing translucent fingers across Maia's bookcase. Slow, gentle, but her eyebrow stays cocked. Maia's eyebrows, on the other hand, draw together in irritation. "The guy who ruined your life." 

And there it is. "I've forgiven him," Maia says. "So that's none of your business."

Gretel purses her lips. "So that's why you guys are all buddy-buddy, now? That's dramatic, even for you."

"People change," Maia snaps. "He's changed. I don't need you breathing down my neck about _my_ life."

"I didn't ask to be here," Gretel says hotly. "Just like I didn't _ask_ for a knife in the stomach."

Maia turns away, stalking toward the kitchen. "That doesn't change how you feel about me. How you've always felt."

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"That I was," Maia wrings her hands. "Just your side project! Something to constantly criticize. That you could just play with me when you wanted, how you wanted. Didn't matter how I felt about you."

Gretel's voice is small. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you _do_." Maia swallows. "And then you left me. Like everyone else. At least Jordan came back." She regrets saying it as soon as the words come out of her mouth.

Gretel looks away. "Well," she says, searching around the room, like she's just realized where she is, who she's with. "I won't keep you any longer."

And just like that, Gretel's disappeared from her living room.

-

“Luke says,” Simon starts casually, “that you have a ghost problem.”

Maia pushes her nose deeper into his fridge. “You’re out of eggs,” she says. “And Gretel’s not a _problem_.”

“Shoot. I’ll add it too the list." Simon frowns. "You’re seeing Gretel?”

Successfully extricating herself from his kitchen, Maia faces Simon with a sigh. “I was.”

“She didn’t like me much,” Simon says, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “But I wasn’t the greatest houseguest. Can you check Jace’s side?”

“A- _ha_ ,” Maia finds a box of pancake mix tucked in one of Jace’s cupboards. She holds it up triumphantly, wiggling her eyebrows at Simon.

“It’ll do,” Simon says solemnly. “But they’re probably gluten-free.” He makes his way toward the stove, twisting knobs and pulling out pans with a careless ease that Maia rarely sees. She, like everyone else, is pleasantly surprised that Jace and Simon living together has worked out better than expected. It's suspicious. “What do you mean you _were_ seeing her?”

Maia makes a face as she confirms Simon’s fears about the pancake mix. “I was,” she says, “and now I don’t. We kind of — had a fight.”

Simon raises his eyebrows. "She _talked_ to you?"

Maia figured the appearing-as-a-ghost thing would have been the weirder part. "I didn't start it, if that's what you're thinking. She blew up at me." But she says it with less than a touch of frustration in her tone. Maia never was good at holding grudges against Gretel.

Simon's quiet for a moment. "I saw my dad, once," he offers. 

Maia puts the box down. "You did? What — what did he say?"

"He," Simon pauses. "Didn't. Say anything."

Maia watches as Simon starts picking at his bracelet, a well-worn habit out of anxiety. When they dated, she used to grip his wrist and rub her thumb over the dips of his skin. A way to keep him distracted and grounded at the same time. Now, she just asks, "How old were you?"

Simon grins. "Young enough that my mom thought I was just having nightmares. I was...I was so _mad_ at him, you know? I yelled and begged, but he didn't say a word. I don't think he could."

Maia thinks about a younger Elaine Lewis, still fresh from her husband's death, and on her way toward a lifelong addiction. She thinks about what it must have been like, hearing your son be so sure that what he was seeing was true. The way that memory must have pushed them further apart. Maia suddenly feels childish, wasting all this time and arguing with Gretel over something so stupid. She came back for a reason. And she came to _Maia_. That has to mean something.

Maia puts her hand over Simon's. "I think if your dad were here now," She says, "He'd want us to eat these pancakes sooner rather than later. Pass me that spatula."

-

Maia isn't surprised to find Gretel, curled up by her window, when she gets home later that day. She briefly panicked on her way over, thinking Gretel was gone for good. That Maia had finally pushed too far, another person out of her life only by her own fault. But that's not how these things go.

She notices that Gretel's less opaque this time, closer to transparency as the cloudy sky filters in through the window. She sees the way Gretel holds herself, too, less noticeable but carefully folded in. Maia feels like an asshole.

"I'm sorry," she says, because neither of them are the beat around the bush type.

Gretel sees her, not-so-subtly wiping her eyes. "Nothing to apologize for," she says in a low voice. Maia almost laughs. They're both so stubborn.

"That's not true." Maia sits on the stool facing the window. "You didn't play with me. You took care of me. Look, I don't know why you're here, or — what's going so terribly in my life that I'm literally resurrecting my dead best friend." Gretel snorts softly. "But don't let me be the dick that blames you for your own murder."

Gretel hugs her knees. She's still wearing the uniform, though Maia itches to change her into something else. "You weren't wrong. About what you said. I knew...I knew how you felt."

Maia shrugs. "I figured."

"I'm sorry for bringing up Jordan."

Maia shifts. "Let's not talk about him."

Gretel cracks a smile, small, but there. "About who?" She reaches for Maia's hand, a gentle weight that Maia remembers so vividly that she doesn't have to fake the feeling. "I know you. I love you. You'll figure this out."

Maia swears, just for a moment, that Gretel doesn't look so pale in the light.

-

“What do you know,” Maia asks one night. “About ghosts?”

Clary Fray blinks at her. Actually, she’s not looking directly at Maia, because Maia is naked. Not in a sexy way, but in a freshly-turned-back way. The kind that makes her want to swallow mouthwash after a night of snapping at pigeons.

“They’re real,” Clary says, with such a grave tone that Maia is almost alarmed. “I saw one, once,” She adds with a hint of pride, conveniently distracted by a passing plane overhead as Maia hunts around for a spare set of clothes she hid in a nearby bush.

They’re winding down from a night of patrol. It’s a Thing, now, part of Alec Lightwood’s agenda to undo centuries of legally-mandated pillage and plunder: pair shadowhunters and downworlders together for nightly routes around Brooklyn, to more effectively bring down their common demonic threats. Simon does a really good job of enunciating the last part, including a spot-on imitation of Lightwood’s eyebrows. Maia once snorted in the middle of a briefing because of it, causing Alec to only more emphatically jab at his color-coded calendar.

Maia, not risking it, waits until Clary’s knives are safely stowed away before jogging to catch up with her. “What’d you see?”

“My dog,” Clary says sadly.

“Your — what.” Maia shakes her head. “Okay. When did it stop?”

Clary squints. “I’m not sure,” she says, restlessly tapping her foot as they wait to cross the street. It’s a humid night, enough to make Maia wish she was actually naked. The resulting blush on Clary’s cheeks wouldn’t be a downside, either. “It was a weird summer.”

She doesn’t make a habit of rubbing elbows with shadowhunters, but Maia very frequently forgets that Clary was thrown into this world in the same way she was: with sheer panic and no rulebook. It almost makes her laugh that, in the few years the other girl has had to adjust, the mere mention of ghosts still has her wide-eyed.

It’s not long before the two find themselves at a well-worn fork in the road. Maia usually stays left, back to her shoebox apartment and leftover takeout, and Clary crosses the street, toward the Institute. Only this time, Clary pretends to focus on a very interesting wad of gum on the sidewalk.

Maia sighs. “Would you like to come over and meet my ghost.”

“Yes, please.”

-

Clary doesn’t waste any time. “Hello, ghost!” she says loudly, directed to the bare walls as they make their way inside. Maia tries very hard not to find it cute.

Gretel's not there, anyway. She disappears when there's guests around, either out of panic or for eavesdropping purposes. Maia won't tell Clary this, though. And truthfully, she needs advice from someone who's not so entangled in her life. She doesn't want Simon's sad eyes, or Luke's guilty looks. 

They hunch around Maia's makeshift dinner table, instead. Clary's made tea for both of them, much to Maia's confusion, and now she's energetically blowing on her own steaming mug.

"So," Clary says. "What did you want to talk about?" Because she's not as clueless as Maia likes to pretend she is.

Maia taps her nails on her own mug. She should cut them before the next full moon. "When you...lose someone. And then they — they come back into your life. What are you supposed to do?"

Clary is silent for a long time. It's no secret that she's had her fair share of supernatural encounters with Jocelyn Fray.

Maia leans forward and continues. The last time she felt this kind of urge to keep going, she was facing Simon in a boathouse. "I feel like I owe it to her. To let her stay."

Clary frowns. "It's just as likely that you're keeping her, or yourself, from moving on."

Maia swallows. "Even if there's — if you have unfinished business?"

"Well," Clary says gently. "I don't think anyone plans to...leave things unresolved." She shrugs. "All we can do is make sense of what they _did_ leave behind."

What Gretel left behind was this: a desire for revenge, and a dark pit in Maia's stomach. She wants to believe that she's smart enough to leave Jace Wayland alone for a crime he didn't commit, but she knows that a part of her still blames him. The part that thinks Luke didn't do enough, that Simon did too much, that Jordan —

But Gretel didn't do anything besides be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That didn't overshadow the way she loved Maia fiercely, if not in the way that Maia loved her back. She didn't deserve to be caught up in Maia's state of mind, to be the subject of Maia's mourning without a narrative of her own.

Maia blinks, eyes suddenly damp. "I guess I...I've been so caught up in _getting through it_ that I forgot what getting through it actually looks like. What happens at the end."

Clary, to Maia's surprise, takes her hand. She doesn't have to imagine the weight in her palm. "Don't beat yourself up about it," Clary says. "You're not in the wrong for just trying to make sense of it, it's just..." she looks down at her now-empty mug. "We forget that the dead stay dead."

Maia knows the resignation in Clary's tone, has heard it more than enough times in her own. She grasps Clary's hand. "That doesn't mean our memory shouldn't keep them alive."

And she knows now, that by the time Clary leaves and Maia clears the kitchen and dries her eyes, Gretel will be long gone.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at immune-lydia.tumblr.com.


End file.
